Persona: Rewritten
by Amaa-chi
Summary: [SYOC, CLOSED- Reupload of the original Persona: Rewritten.] Wherein a girl finds herself plunged into the mystery of Jikangai, missing people, and the enigmatic world of those around her.


_The trees reached into the air like hands. Branches akin to fingers, clasped together to conceal the grey sky from view, leaving only small strands to hit the blackened ground. A chill sat in the false world, dark foliage keeping the warmth away from the trio of travellers._

"_Wait up," she rasped. Mio stretched her hand out, searching for the figure darting ahead, long hair swaying behind her. She was disappearing into the dark. "Don't leave me! Please, don't leave me here-!"_

_The girl turned around. Heart pounding rapid fire fists in her chest, she watched the figure pivot. It leapt up into her throat as the vacant expression became apparent. The quiet smile, and the haunting silence as her eyes flickered gold-_

* * *

_[Day One]_

Mio screams, and jolts upright, nearly slamming her head into the chair in front of her. A loud curse- where is she?- it's so-

Bright.

She blinks. Blinks again. Sunlight, shining through the window- the sudden glow that bounces off of faux leather, a small lake offset by spruce wood flickering outside the window, a warm sun surrounded by a bright blue sky. Papa glanced over from the driver's seat, eyes wide and skin torn from his lower lip with how he's been gnawing at it.

"Are you alright, Mio? What's wrong?" His gaze drops- shifting between her hands bunched tightly around her archery glove, then to the glove compartment.

_Inhale_. She tries to cough the sandpaper-y texture from her mouth, running her tongue over her lips to return moisture. Mio closes her eyes and resumes her position on the glass window. A laugh bubbles out.

Another nightmare, it seems.

"Yeah, papa. I'm fine! Just a little…" a sign with _Jikangai, eight-hundred metres ahead _flies past, leading into small red houses- and causing the ever-identifiable shiver to wash over her. She breathes in, and exhales. With the breath, she tries to remove the temporary panic from her lungs. "I'm fine."

She catches sight of her reflection in the glass- wide grey eyes offset by dark bags, blonde hair pulled up into two buns and a shaky smile. He eyes her, before turning back towards the steering wheel. His grip tightens. "You'd tell me if something was up though, right? I mean, we haven't been back here since-"

Since...

"I'm _fine, _Papa," she cuts him off. Mio offers a smile, then a grin matched with a thumbs up. "Cross my heart!"

Papa snorts, lips twisting into a toothy smile underneath his black beard. "'Course you are. Only god knows what's got into me, thinking you'd be anything but." He reaches over, shifts the knobs on the radio to play something that sounds like it'd be more natural in an elevator- something artificially jaunty, with even beats and no vocals. Almost like an advertisement, but with nothing to sell.

Should she get a job? It's not like he gives her pocket change. "Exactly, you're just being stupid." She responds airily.

"Hey! Wouldn't be stupid of me to throw you out of this car now, would it?" His eyes glint, a hand slipping off the wheel to jab her in the side.

Mio snorts, "I dare you to try- ow, ow! You're a bully!"

"Am not!"

"Yeah, you-!" She thrashes to avoid the prodding, accidentally bringing a foot to collide with the glovebox. "Ow! You meanie!"

"Eh?! How am I the meanie? You did this to yourself, silly." A small chuckle follows soon after before he turns his eyes back to the road. Her eyes fall on the forest outside of Jikangai.

"_Mio-!"_

She breathes in. Her hands claw at her shorts, digging her nails into the skin. Laughter echoes off in the distance, ricocheting off of the trees and back through her skull. The taste of iron fills her mouth, and she realises that she's bitten down on her tongue to keep from screaming.

She breathes out.

"We'll be there soon." He- Papa- hums, but his voice sounds far away.

Sweat drips down her brow. The sunlight begins to feel claustrophobic, like its yellow fingers are tapping at the window and the keyhole.

* * *

Inside the household, she takes the moment to start patting at the lounge. The dust hits her square in the face and Mio twists away to smack her chest as she coughs, shying a glance over to the rest of the living room. Papa practically attacks an obscure painting with a duster. After a few attempts, the oil-paint river almost looks blue.

"Do you even like that painting?"

He shakes his head. "Can't stand it, actually. I was kind of hoping the moths would've gotten to it."

Mio shrugs. "You said that mother liked that one."

"Uh-huh. Don't really know why, but she brought it from a thrift shop somewhere. Said it was going to be a nice addition or something." The thick layer of grime falls to the floor, all over his shoes. He visibly recoils, fake-gagging as he hops away from the exposed image- catching his foot on the edge of the coffee table and plummeting dramatically to the carpet. "G-Gah… avenge me…"

Mio taps a finger to her chin. "Hm… nah."

"So cruel-!"

She snorts, stepping over his writhing form to the infamous painting itself. The detail almost looks back at her- black spruce standing still beside a shallow riverbed, little groups of red and purple berries growing in between the rocky outcrops. Branches cast indistinct shadows over the water, almost like a figure leaning over to drink. She can see it already; clawed hands, curled around to make a basin with small stones occasionally pricking at its teeth. The liquid seeps between its fingers, down its furred neck and into skeletal ribs below.

It turns to look at her. Specks of gold gleam from the whites of sunken eyes and a tongue lolls down to where its belly button would be. Spittle drips, hitting the shrubbery. Its jaw opens, a darkened abyss-

"Mio?"

Blink.

"Mio, did you get the pills out of the glovebox?" The voice- Papa's voice- is familiar, though… wasn't he just on the ground-? She looks over; nope, he's in the kitchen, thick arms crossed as he leans on the wooden countertop. Opening her mouth slightly, she realises that the kitchen light is on.

The windows are covered by black curtains.

"Mio?"

She shakes her head, forcing her eyes away from the foliage. "Uh, nope! I thought you were getting everything."

Makin' your old man do all the work, eh?" Papa exaggeratedly sighs. "Well, nah. Not today. Your pills, your responsibility- oh, and grab my wallet, too! I ordered take out, 'cause well… the pots are still in the boxes, so there's no instant noodles tonight."

Nodding slightly, Mio strides to the door.

"Wait- sorry to shove this on 'ya kiddo, but could you run down to the store as well?" She narrowly avoids being smacked in the face by a flying black wallet, fumbling it before catching it with her foot. "I need to fix up the plumbing, so just grab a few bottles of water."

She nods, and moves to pull her shoes on. "It's alright! I need some fresh air anyway, aha! Maybe there'll be some locals here. Do you think anyone we used to know is still here?"

"How should I know?" He wryly comments back. "I had a different job back then."

Oh. Right.

Mio shrugs it off. "I'll be back in about twenty or so minutes. Unless I get abducted- in which case, I probably won't be back at all."

Dead silence. "You shouldn't joke about that, Mio."

Her eyes flicker to the ceiling. "C'mon, if anyone's allowed to joke about that, it's me."

"Mio, just-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm going."

He says something else, but she slams the door shut. Immediately out of the faint light, the chill strikes at her. Regretting the lack of a jacket, Mio tucks her hands into her pockets. The street lamps loom above, stretching their shadows across the abandoned street.

In the distance, she sees the forest again.

Pointedly refusing to give it the time of day, she turns her eyes to the sidewalk.

Coloured blue and pink chalk stands out among the grey, small childlike sketches of stick men and cars and something that looked vaguely like a dog interweaving with the lines on the cement. Kicking at a wayward pebble, she sighs.

The street lamps illuminate the pathway, dulling every so often to cast her into the momentary blackness before regaining their glow. All the backyard gates are closed. None of the houses on this street show light- their windows are shut with only fragments of yellow piercing through.

She shivers. It's… it's just like dealing with heights, right? Don't look at the ground, look up. The sky. The same sky that's always been there, that'll always be there, that'll be there forever. Wind howls in her ears, almost like a threat.

Mio rounds the corner to catch sight of another collection of street lamps, gold blinking over the sliding doors of a small building set dead centre in the middle of the street. She brushes some wayward strands of hair out of her eyes as she approaches, raising an eyebrow at the mannequin seated next to the entrance.

He's propped up against the wall, the metal stand not holding him up properly and letting him sit limply. Some eyes have been crudely drawn on with a black marker, followed by a triangular frown, though half of his face is concealed by a crooked blue top hat- adorned with a loop of black and white ribbon. Mio fixes up his posture, adjusting his cloak and his bow tie- with the pattern of an eye in it's centre.

"Did they just leave you out here?" She rests her head beneath his chin, moving it up and down as he 'nods'. "Poor guy. The weather must be horrible."

He doesn't respond.

She looks him over for a moment, waiting for a reaction- a trademark chuckle, the exaggerated bow, the puns, but he sits lifeless. Like a vegetable, or a particularly cold piece of wood. After a few seconds, Mio straightens him up, flicks him on the forehead for good luck and turns her eyes to the window of the store itself.

A faint blue light flickers from inside, some posters from movies several years gone from the cinema, the slow spin of a ceiling fan and rows and rows of untouched goods like instant noodles and soft drink cans.

Opening the door with a chime of the bell on top of it, she peers around. Shelves of candy greet her, purple packaging illuminated by the artificial yellow-ish light. The walls are a deep blue, with streaks of beige from where the paint is peeling, as well as magazines of scantily clad women and large trucks next to a broken slushie machine. Even with her sneakers on, the tiled floor looks cold- the only sound being the whirr of ventilation and her own breathing.

She grabs a packet of fix water bottles from the rack, then, after much deliberation, grabs a bottle of orange juice as well. The packaging looks to be still in date, though the brand itself is unfamiliar. It's not like 'bad' orange juice is a thing, and she shrugs off any misgivings over mislabelled food products and resigns that dying of expired orange juice is _really _the least of her worries.

She doesn't even like orange juice that much.

The young man behind the counter looks up from a sudoku puzzle, raising a pale eyebrow, before shrugging. She passes it over the countertop, watching him scan the water, then the orange juice, before he inputs something into a dusty computer. "That'll be twelve hundred yen."

Mio painstakingly counts out the notes from the wallet, slowly handing them over methodically and counting under her breath. Bubbles rise to the surface of her drink. For a moment, her head is similar- as if her thoughts are lifting and being consumed by the rotation of the ceiling fan. It's a quiet place. Kinda like a library, or perhaps a funeral.

She looks over the countertop, and she notes a missing person poster stuck up to a tack board. Hanako Mizumi, aged seventeen, with a small smile on her face and with a black printed date roughly one year before now. Brown hair, green eyes, a small cut on her lower lip from where she- (_tripped over my own feet and plummeted a couple of feet down a staircase- pretty stupid, right-?)_

Nausea settles in her stomach. She opens her mouth. Regrets it, and turns to look at the floor instead. The ceiling fan casts no shadow. He hands over the case and the bottle, and she eyes his blank name tag. Tucking the wallet back into her pocket, she smiles at him.

"Have a nice day." He calls out as she leaves.

It's night.

Far off in the distance, she can hear something moving.

"Thanks, you too!" She fits the case underneath her arm, waves at the cashier as she leaves, and cracks open the lid of the drink as the automatic doors whirr open, then shut. When she looks over to the mannequin, Mio notes dully that there's nothing there, save a circular space on the ground where the dirt hasn't managed to invade.

She feels the smile crawl off her face, replaced instead with a chill on the back of her neck that creeps ever inwards. The bottle feels like ice in her hands. Her grip on it tightens. The moonlight flickers over as she jogs, completely ignoring that one of her shoelaces has come untied.

No one's out in the streets tonight. She doesn't see anything as she walks home- or, perhaps more clearly, nothing sees her.

There's no second pair of footsteps following her home. There's no breath against the back of her neck. There's just the bottle in her hand, the wallet in her back pocket, and her own shaking hands. Even the wind is silenced, sitting dead in the air.

In spite of the dark, it's not difficult to navigate the way home. It's repetition, really; the same with archery- that practice and consistency make perfect. And even now, several years later, it's still easy to see the disarray of her front lawn, with Papa's car sitting dusty in the driveway and the window wide open with his face looking out into the dark.

"Mio- Christ, what took you so long?!" It's the same consistency she notes, to watch her father run out and grab her by the wrist, dragging her inside as she yelps. The case falls from under her arm, water rolling across the floor as the thin plastic tears.

"Ouch! Papa, why are you-?"

He seizes her by the shoulder and shakes her hard enough that it feels like her brain is going to pop clean out of her skull. "Where have you been?! It's late!"

_No shit. It was ten when I left._

"You told me to go get the paper!" Her eyes flickers over to the television, the sole thing he must've unpacked while she left. Inside a blue box in the bottom left corner, [3:20AM].

The store-

"Did something happen?!" It's similar to a hummingbird, really- the back and forth sensation, whiplash and the slight pain from both her sides and her head. "Where were you?"

"I-I must've gotten lost, or something." She grins. Waits for her breath to return to her lungs. "I'm fine, really!"

Flickering blue lights. The poster. _Have a nice day! _The orange juice frothing up, mannequin next to the door… _Oh, it's happening again._

"Mio?" He asks.

She looks up. His beard is heavily knotted- he must've been tugging at it again, stressful habit, he'd called it.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Mio laughs. Shying a glance over to where her bow is leaning against the wall, she feels her hand curl tightly around her drink, as if to squeeze the life from it. "I promise, nothing happened. It was just… I got caught up looking at all the different chocolate bars."

He stares at her. Then, he breathes in, and exhales shakily. "You got caught up looking at the food."

Nodding at this, she starts to slide her sneakers off, dumping them on a box next to the door. "Uh-huh! I mean, they don't sell the cookies and cream flavours anymore, I think they mustn't have sold well."

A pause hangs, then he snorts. "...You're probably the only one who ever brought it, y'know?"

"Probably." Mio pouts. "I mean, they were really good! And they were only a hundred and fifty yen. With my old allowance I could buy like… six of those. Oh, and the orange juice price went up as well."

He takes his wallet back, and the two set about retrieving the six wayward water bottles. "Tell me about it, right. Everythin's going up nowadays- gas is more expensive than ever as well, cost me a fortune just to get here."

"And why are we here, exactly?" She blurts out.

"Mio, we've been over this."

Her shoulders droop. "Well, yeah, but-"

Papa sighs, drops the packaging onto the countertop before he slumps. "You used to love being here. I mean, it'll be fine again. The old archery setup is still in the park, and the school is exactly the same, and…"

"And Hana is still missing." She responds, trying to keep the resentment out of her tone.

He tenses up. "...Do you think I can do anything about that, Mio?" She doesn't answer, and he continues on. "I have _no _idea of what happened that day. I don't know where she went- hell, I don't even know where you went! That entire year you spent, disappearing into nowhere, days late when you two were rummaging in the woods?"

"I-"

"Yes, I'm still worried about your friend! But you never told me what happened. You're just-! Off in your head, most of the time!"

She recoils. Physically, one of her hands move to her cheek, as if she's been struck. Her face twists, and she feels her nose bunch up like it always does when she's upset. "Right."

He inhales. "Mio, listen-"

Mio shakes her head. "No. I-I'm going to my room." She pushes past him. Her eyes stray to the painting, to the lack of a creature inside it, and her eyes burn at the corners. He calls her from the bottom of the stairs as she ascends it, but she storms off, shoving her hands in her pockets so they don't dig into her skin.

Breathe. It's hard to breathe. She shoves the door open with a little too much force and it smacks against the wall with a heavy _thud. _For a moment, she imagines tearing it off of it's hinges and flinging it out a window and into the street below. Mio wants to scream, and she does so- a loud guttural noise that breaks an illusion of calm.

It echoes throughout her room, bouncing off of the walls as if it's wailing back at her. With the open window, her anger bounces out into the street, her curtains shifting in the cool breeze that drifts through.

She drops onto the bed, and she turns her head to the scrunched ball of paper sitting on the bedside table.

Mio lifts it, taking care unfolding it, exposing the uncomfortable face in the creased laminated paper. The missing persons poster, dated for one year before.

"...Where _are _you, Hana?" She whispers.

* * *

[_Day Two_]

Walking over to the target, Mio plucks out three arrows from where they sit lodged inside the bullseye. These ones are plastic tipped, strong enough to embed into wood, but not enough to break past. They're unbalanced in her hands, slightly chipped from years of misuse and peeling slightly.

She blinks at the sound of something. A loud ringing, echoing through the school grounds. The noise isn't familiar. After a few moments of listening to it with wide eyes, she tilts her head. And, shrugging half-heartedly, she returns to her position eighty metres away, and takes aim again.

They'd tried to lock the gate to the Jikangai Academy archery range at night, but the lock was easy enough to snap out of place, as rusted as it used to be. Besides, Mio was the only one who ever went there, with the exception of some seniors who used the forest overlooking it as a chance to sneak off from class. And even then, they usually went twenty minutes into the actual woods rather than risk getting caught.

She nocks the arrow to the string, pulling it back with her left hand as she closes her right eye.

_Twang. Thud._

The string snaps back into place, the arrow flying free to land in one of the holes made prior. Bullseye, though too close to the inner ring for her liking. Sighing, she sets it down.

She takes the chance to look down at herself. Her school uniform is the exact same as last years, just a little more dusty and a little more worn out- it's been sitting in the closet for the past year, admittedly, and it took several hours of scrubbing to even get the musty smell out of it. There's a tear in the left knee of her shorts, a mustard stain on the bottom of her shirt (she tucked it in, on her dad's demand), and she can already feel her shoelaces coming undone.

Rolling her shoulder, she winces. Quickly turning to a grimace as the muscle begins to ache, worn out from a simple hour long practice. Her aim is off, her body feels tired already, and it's only eight am. With a huff, she lifts up her water bottle and downs it.

The noise hasn't stopped. It continues, reverberating off around the school. It takes her a moment before-

"Is that a new school bell?" She wonders aloud. "But it's only eight-" Looking over at the track field from the archery gate, it hits her that perhaps there's a reason that there's no one doing laps. "Oh, _shit._"

She legs it. The fence is easy enough to climb over, though she staggers a bit when she hits the ground running. Her arms windmill, she falls forward- and stops herself from hitting the ground at the last second, jogging with a speed that'd make an Olympian proud. She feels like a modern day Hermes, angering the school god and bolting faster than light- possibly able to run on water.

The air hits at her face, smacking her hair out of her eyes and the wind from her lungs, building soon reaching her line of sight. A student dressed in the navy colours of Jikangai moves to close the door, but she barrels past him, tripping over his leg in the meanwhile and slamming her face against the ground. He curses loudly, and she hears something else hit the ground as well.

"Ow… my head… why am I always getting injured…?" She mutters to herself, pressing a hand to her nose, and then- "ah, I have class!"

"Oi, wait." She's halfway up the stairs when she pauses. Pivoting, she sees the student who'd closed the door, flat on his ass, and glaring up at her. "You shouldn't be running in the corridors."

If she was in a more rational state of mind, she'd stop, apologise with a bow, and ask if the brunette boy was alright- it takes her a moment to clarify that it is actually a student; the bags under his eyes contribute to a tired, irritated expression that bumped his age up from roughly seventeen to forty. Maybe thirty-nine. She was feeling generous.

Unfortunately, not as generous as she is spiteful. Mio pokes her tongue out at him, blows him a raspberry and keeps running, staggering her way up the staircase.

Twisting on her heels, she's greeted with an empty hallway.

"Okay, Mio. Battle strategy, go." Mio whispered under her breath. "And my battle strategy and copious amounts of good luck say… this door!"

She shoves open the door directly next to her, and it in turn loudly hits the wall behind it. An elderly man visibly jumps, the pen dropping from his hand as he stares at her with wide eyes. The class similarly looks bewildered, though it shortly descends into quiet whispering amongst themselves. Mio grins, offers a salute, and strides through the door. The class falls back into silence. _Yeesh, tough crowd. _

"Good morning! Apologies for being late!" She chirps.

A cough. More silence.

The teacher sighs quietly, checking something on the laptop before, "Tsukimura, please go take a seat. I'll talk to you about disrupting my class at the end of the lesson."

She grins. "Of course, thank you!" Striding past the lines of desks, she stops next to an unfamiliar mauve-haired girl who looks up at her momentarily, then looks directly down at her book. Mio risks a glance, and notices the slight doodle of a cat in the top left corner before a hand covers it.

Dropping into the seat next to her, she reaches for her bag-

Wait.

Mio pats her back. She looks down at her feet, feeling along her legs for anywhere it might be hiding, invisible or otherwise. The girl promptly gives her a confused look. The bag… she must've dropped it when she was running! Or when she was at the archery range- did she even bring it from home? She must have- hopefully. Did she?

Raising her hand, the teacher's annoyance is palpable. "...Did you forget your writing equipment, Tsukimura?"

"I think it's gone missing, teach." She echoes, nodding sincerely.

"Missing." He sighs. "It's missing."

People lose stuff all the time. "Yup. I think someone's taken it." She hears some giggling from behind her. "Teach, can I go look for it?"

He doesn't say anything for a long time. Mio gets to her feet, and walks to the door, pausing to stare at him. "Tsukimura."

"Ye~es?"

The man opens his mouth, closes it again. He sighs. "Go and get it. It's the first day back, I can be lenient. Just come and see me after class."

Mio smiles and gives him a thumbs up as she closes the door behind her.

For the second time today, she's met by an empty hallway. One of her hands moves to adjust her hair clips even as she turns back towards the staircase.

Silhouettes flicker behind the glass windows. She blinks up at the classroom across from her, where a figure moves behind the door. The teachers voice echoes out, further emphasised by the sound of heavy chalk hitting the board repeated to emphasise- mathematics, or something. The door distorts his words, twisting like when you speak into the blades of a fan; metallic.

She feels her fingers digging into her palms, and she feels her nails cutting into the calloused skin there. Her hand opens. Mio slowly moves her wrist in a circular motion, feeling the air bubble pop and watching the blood cells move underneath to redden her palms.

When she closes her eyes, she forces the breath in. And she counts.

One.

Two. She has to open her eyes.

Against better judgement, she keeps them tied shut.

Three.

Four.

Five. Is someone in front of her? She can hear footsteps. A shift in light, as something moves in front of her. _Choose to ignore it and it'll choose to ignore you. You're the one who decides how this plays out, so choose and choose carefully._

Six.

Something brushes her leg. Seven.

Eight.

Nine-

"You're taking up space, so I'd advise you to move."

Nope. Nuh uh. She's not opening her eyes, not in the slightest, not going to let a crack shine through. She's-

Something flicks painfully against her forehead and her eyes snap open.

"Wha- what the hell!" Her hands fly to where the bruise is most likely forming there, shooting a glare as colour fills her vision. She notices immediately the smug face, half-cocked brow and tilted head; then, she turns her eyes to the steely grey sash tied around his arm, kanji unreadable from this angle, but a clear marking of the Student Council. "Jeez, you'd think that the heads of this school would have some manners."

When she turns her head, something casts a faint reddish light, highlighting the dull grey floor of the hallway. She tries to shrug it off, but the faint hum lingers.

He shrugs. "I told you to move. You didn't. If you're not willing to follow a simple instruction, perhaps you shouldn't be attending school at all. I'm sure the local janitor would be happy to teach you a thing or two, if you're so inclined to acting like trash."

_Ouch. _"Well, that's out of left-field." She blinks. "I could've been having a heart attack and you'd make fun of me for it."

"Knowing your reputation, you'd probably deserve it." He snarked back. The pale light catches on his teeth, and it almost looks to be dripping. Like saliva from a dogs mouth- or maybe even like a modern day Dracula. Not as cute though.

Ooh?

"Eh, I've got a reputation?" Mio taps at her cheek, attempting to recall if she'd ever done anything particularly noteworthy. Was it the Mio-ssiah incident? "Was it about the Mio-ssiah? Or the other one- which, frankly, I was kinda hoping I wouldn't be remembered for, ahahah..."

"About the _what?_" She gives him another glance-over. There's a particular sheen to his hair, gel pinning it back out of face to expose auburn (she double takes, only to realise it's his natural eye colour and not the light) eyes twisted in a rather nasty glower. The Student Council member is on the larger side, casting a shadow that she has to stand on the tips of her toes to break even slightly.

Was this guy even there for that? She doesn't remember seeing his face in, well, anything really. Then again, a lot had changed since she was last here, so-

"I asked you a question." He snapped.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, you did." Mio considers it. "Y'know, the sandwich?" Irritation creases into downright bewilderment. "The sandwich incident."

He stares at her. And slowly, he shakes his head. "You're the stupidest person I've ever had the misfortune of meeting, Tsukimura." Wow, he knows her name. She feels pride swell in her chest- a reputation, and having her last name known; she's half-way to fame already. "Why aren't you in class? Having another meltdown, it seems?"

Her eyes drift away, focusing on- the silhouette of the boy from the stairs, moving sluggishly past the two of them. As the light flickers, his shape does too- school uniform giving way to long claws- for the briefest of moments before he strides down the hallway, her vision blocked by one of the shelves. With a quiet inhale, she counts ten.

And she pats the Student Council member on the shoulder, and steps past him "Hey! It's been lovely meetin' you, but I have to head off, okay? See ya!"

"What?"

She sees his arm lifted and she moves, dropping to duck under it and swoop, her own arms stretched to each side as she bolted to where the figure had went.

She'd seen it.

She'd _seen _it, and they said she was a liar for it.

His shadow descended down the centre stairs, she caught a glimpse of his uniform as he vanished out of sight. Mio cursed under her breath; the humming sat immobile in its intensity, pounding at her ears and heart.

Nausea hits her in the nose like a ton of bricks, the beginnings of another episode bouncing around inside her head. Mio winces and a hand flies up to her skull, pressing against the skin above her eyes. Not again...

The momentum carries her forward a few more steps, her spare arm flailing as she tries to keep her own balance against its inertia. Hoping against hell it'll go away, Mio staggers to a stop.

Jogging on the spot, she glances back at where he went- then down to the other entrance, leading to the track field. Mio sighs, and reluctantly begins the trek, releasing her chance of pursuit in hopes of a future confrontation.

* * *

The professor taps something out on a keyboard before he addresses her, crossing his hands over one another, with dark eyes set in a crease. "Tsukimura… how are you doing, exactly?"

Mio, focused on how the black brows knead together like a pair of talking caterpillars, blinks slowly. "Huh? I'm doing good! Why, what's up?

He shoots a look to the other person, leaning against the corner of the room. The school nurse fixes his button-up, removing a completely unnecessary stethoscope from around his neck and placing it on the table. It takes her a minute to figure out his face, the light pierces through the curtains and gives everything a bright sheen.

First glance tells her that he's plain looking. A long face, thin eyes, sharp nose. He clicks his tongue as he talks, cupids bow bouncing up and down in exaggerated, nonsensical movements that twist the proportions of his jaw. Not a single strand of hair escapes from a tightly-clasped net.

_He looks more like a surgeon than a nurse..._

"We… know the incident was a horrible one." Oh. "And we wanted to ask if you were… adjusting, perhaps." Her mouth stays tightly shut, the teacher looking down at his notes, then up. "Are you? Adjusting?"

Mio smiles. "Yeah. I'm fine, thanks!" She tugs at a loose strand on her shorts, feeling the material slacken. Wrapping it around her hands, she wounds it tight, watching the pale skin redden under it. When she looks up, she grins for emphasis.

He doesn't smile back. "...Is everything alright at home?"

Before she can respond, the nurse chimes in. "I've been instructed to monitor your wellbeing, Mio." His lips twitch. "If you ever need anything, feel free to drop by, whenever. It won't affect your attendance too badly, and we can discuss any problems you might have," his eyes flicker, "readjusting."

She feels herself getting to her feet. "Thanks for the offer, but I'll be a-okay. And uh, if you don't mind…?" Inclining her head towards the door, the teacher nodded and moved to open it.

"Don't be afraid to come see either of us if you need anything, Tsukimura." The teacher murmurs. Mio nods, fighting off the shiver that tip-toes down her spine. He opens his mouth, then looks over as someone knocks. "Come in."

The door opens and the boy from earlier comes through. He looks at Mio, and ever-so-slightly tenses up, before affixing her with a stiff nod and turning to the desk. "I wanted to ask about the subject we were discussing prior. Namely, the school library."

"It's Gushiken, isn't it?" The boy nods. "Of course. Please, take a seat. Tsukimura, if you would…?"

Mio blinks at them both, and nods. "Sure thing. See 'ya around!"

* * *

She drops her head onto the table, and groans. The wood is cold beneath her forehead, she presses herself into it as if to disappear into the varnished, cracked surface. The teacher's voice drones on in the background, sending vibrations into her skull to settle amidst the light wave of fuzz there. If she fell asleep here, no one would stop her, she considers. The person in front of her is taller, she could get away with it.

No.

Mio jerks her head upright, nearly uprooting her book in the process. Shaking the thought from her head, she tries to focus- maths. She knows maths. She knows… algebra. Two plus two is four, all that nonsense. But as she glances over the board, her heart sinks.

There's a lot of words on that board. Numbers- (_ichi, ni, san-) _interwoven with kanji, with small scraps of lines from the lesson she'd missed yesterday.

Mio leans over to the boy next to her. "Hey, um, what's going on?" She half-whispers.

From where his bangs had half-fallen into his eyes, he gives a slight smile. "Guessing you didn't bring notes…?"

Mio shakes her head.

He chuckles, before shaking his own head in turn. "Sorry. Uh, I haven't really studied since middle school." She must've wilted slightly before, "I mean, I've been meaning to catch up on it, so maybe we can figure something out? Hit me up after class."

"Right." Mio nods.

Her eyes turn back to the board, and she grabs onto her pencil to look like she's doing something. When the teacher glances over the room, Mio gives him a serious nod- yes, she's paying attention, why wouldn't she be?

The rest of the classroom lingers in a distinctive haze, the quiet conversation disappearing amidst the layers of boredom. Her mouth stretches in a yawn, flickering between the man at the front of the room, the clock hanging on the wall above him and the door. A small fan sits above the window, lines of tape fluttering as it rotates, recirculating the warm air throughout the room.

It's so warm that her eyes start to flicker shut. She feels herself start to merge with the chair, slipping into a uniform being, back down into that lazy, listless fog. Time disappears, offset instead by the blackness.

A pencil scratches into paper from somewhere to her left. Mio cracks open an eye, swivelling first to the boy next to her, biting at his lip and staring at the page, then to the empty chair on her right.

"Tsukimura-san," she blinks open from her daze, watching as he writes out the lettering of her name, beneath text that reads _Gushiken. _"He doesn't seem to be present today, but Gushiken-san will be your partner for the upcoming assignment, if that's okay?" Before she can interrupt, he connects the two names with a blue arrow on the whiteboard. A few other names match it. "Alright well, that's everyone. For those whose assigned partners aren't in class, please read up on the instructions and try to track them down if you can. It'll be due in on the Friday of next week."

As the teacher dismisses them, she ducks her head back to the guy now packing his papers up next to her. "And that guy is…"

Grey eyes flicker her over, before they crease. "Oh, you mean Daiya-san?" Mio nods, as if she knows exactly who that is. The guy grimaces slightly. "Yeah, he's a bit awkward, but I don't think he's a bad guy, just a little odd." He laughs. "Though I guess that applies to everyone in this school, eh? It's practically a requisite."

She blinks at him.

"I- I didn't mean that in a bad way!"

"Eh? I didn't say you did."

From where his hands were flailing, he takes a deep breath. "Ah, it was a joke…? Sorry! I've been told I'm not the best at this sorta thing." Why do people apologise for stupid things? She doesn't think she'll ever understand it.

Mio blinks again. One of his eyelashes had fallen out, and was caught between the frame and lens of the boys glasses. She fights the urge to bat it off his face. "Eh? You're sorry?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

He opens his mouth to speak, only to be cut off by the sound of a throat being cleared. The Mauve-cat girl from yesterday, with the drawing in her book, raising an eyebrow; burnt sugar eyes and pursed lips pulling her face into a glare. "Hideki-san, you were called up to the office again."

Glasses boy- Hideki- winces slightly. "Yeah, uh, I kinda thought I was going to get expelled or detention- hey, did I tell you about the time I got detention because of Tumbles?" She opens her mouth, and Mio watches with bemused curiosity as he keeps talking. "He got into the orchid again- I guess you could say he was _barking _up the wrong tree. Eh? Eh?"

"You didn't explain the joke." Mauve-girl sighs. She opens her mouth, and gets cut off again.

"Oh. Uh. Tumbles is a dog."

"How did a dog get into a tree?" Mio frowns, leaning in attentively.

"With some _dogged_ determination, probably."

Mio snorts, descending into giggles as Glasses boy looks incredibly proud of himself, puffing out his chest. Mauve-Cat-girl sighs again and presses a hand to knead at her forehead.

"We should work on our project, Yozora-san." He chirps to her, adjusting where his glasses sit on his nose.

She shook her head. "I've already done it."

"E-Eh?! But- we only learned about it a week ago?"

Mauve-Cat-girl nods. "Yes. I started on it on the day we got it. I hope you don't mind, but if you want to check it over, I'll send it to you."

Hideki winced, lifting his hands placatingly. "I feel a little bad. You do all the work whenever we're paired up… at this rate, you'll end up getting me into university."

Apparently, meant to be a joke, she doesn't laugh. "It's better this way," she shrugs. "If that's everything, I'll be off."

She twists on her heels, closing the door quietly behind her. Hideki's shoulders droop as he sighs, before straightening up with the realisation that the two of them were now the only ones in the room.

He barks out a short, tired laugh. "This school is filled with loners, eh? I mean, no offense to them! It's just… hard to keep a conversation going when no one really wants to accept help or even speak to another person. Don't get me wrong, they're nice people, but they're just- so wary." He explains.

Mio thinks back to Hanako. The name on the board. Red specks in the painting.

"Yeah," she says slowly, already beginning to plot her course, "yeah, I suppose they are."

* * *

[_Day Three_]

'_Gushiken_' isn't in class today, either.

Mio connects the dots, assuming that the chair on her right must be theirs. As class draws to a close, she kicks a foot out and smacks it into Hideki's ankle from where he's sitting next to her. He bites back a hiss, brows furrowing as he winces and shoots a glance back and a '_why?_' gesture.

"Gushiken isn't here," she offers in the way of explanation.

One of his eyebrows lift. "...and…? I mean, I can try to help you with your assignment, and Mr Fujioka is nice, so he'd probably help you as well-"

Mio shakes her head. "No, isn't it suspicious?" He'd been in the principal's office, but it wasn't like she could bring that up.

Both his eyebrows retreat into his bangs, bewilderment flashing. "Is it? He's… rarely ever here to begin with. Daiya-san does most of his work outside of class, and he's usually ranked in the top ten of the year group, so I don't really think it was ever an issue…"

"That's odd, though," she argues. "If he's diligent enough to do his work outside of class, why isn't he in class?"

He shrugs. "He doesn't like these people."

"These people?"

"By these people, I mean 'most of Jikangai'." Any hurt was cut off by a quiet laugh, almost as if resigned to it.

"You seem upset," Mio blinks.

Hideki shrugs. "I feel bad for him."

...Eh?

"He doesn't talk to anyone," he continues, "he's just this mysterious, studious ghost who comes to class for exams and who everyone fawns over but no one actually knows. It's sad, isn't it? It sounds like an empty life. Like the beginning of some tragic manga."

"You have a lot of feelings for people you don't even talk to," Mio says.

"I have a lot of feelings in general," he chuckles back. "And trust me, it's hella exhausting. I wish I could be diligent, but to tell the truth, I'd rather get along with a lot of people than be admired by the same amount."

"Is that the old 'lonely at the top of the mountain' idea?" She mulls it over, and, perhaps there's logic in it. It's a lifeless feeling, to be alone, and there's no joy gained in a predictable lifestyle.

He shrugs again. "Dunno, really." Hideki gets to his feet, slinging his bag over his shoulder and moving to the door, before he pauses. "Y'know, if you're really set on this? He spends a lot of time in the school and public libraries. It's on the second floor, next to the nurse's office."

Mio nods, slowly. Progress on _something _(she still doesn't know what she's doing, yet, but at least it's something), finally! "Hey, thanks! If I ever find anything out, I'll let you know."

"Ahaha, you don't have to! Although…" he sighs, "I better head off. Good luck, okay?"

She waves him off, and he gives a light-hearted salute before he disappears out the door, most likely to harass some dog named Tumbles or whatever.

Mio tries to recall the school map from deep within the labyrinth of her memories. There are two main blocks- east side, and west side, and the archery range and track field are on the east, with the eastern building overlooking them. The west side is where the third-year classes are, on the bottom floor, with most of the minor storage rooms and general facilities on the second floor.

Which means, if she wants to make it to her second class after confronting Gushiken…

...she's going to have to do some running.

She crouches down to retie the laces on her sneakers. She considered herself pretty fast- just because she was an archer didn't mean she could skip on leg day! Her bag was light today too, so hopefully she could deal with the issue and still be back in time to eat. Flinging her backpack onto, well, her back, she takes a deep breath, and bolts as the nausea begins to build.

_Just keep it together, Mio,_ she thinks to herself, _count to ten, and keep it together_.

* * *

When she makes it to the second floor, she's out of breath and her vision is spinning in uncontrollable circles, spiralling in on itself. Red taints the edge of her view.

She's made a bad decision- it wasn't supposed to come back so soon-

Exhaustion. No. Another episode.

She grips onto the wall nearest her when her knees buckle, and hot anger simmers in the back of her throat. Bullshit. This is _bullshit_, all those years, and she still can't even keep her feet steady, all those years, and she still- frustrated tears build at her eyes- she still can't fight this off.

(_this is why she left_, the voices say, _this is why she left you_-)

Her hand curls into a fist, and she slams it into the wall- watching flecks peel off and flutter to the ground. The texture is already starting to change. Paint plaster warping, bleeding into a deep, deep red that hits the dirt ground. Shapes of students round the corner, the ends of their uniforms stretching and elongating and bones cracking as they shift. All except for herself and-

Her hand fell on the railing, and she immediately jerked it away at the sensation- something pricked at her hand. Vines, growing sharp along the metal, leaving red to drip down at her palms.

_Breathe in, Mio,_ she says to herself, _breathe in, you can't lose your cool now._

She forces back the anger, the bubbling sensation, and searches for the numbers inside of her head. The world steadies as she counts them behind a held inhale- one, then two. Three. Four, to five, to six. Seven. Eight and nine. Ten. Nine. Eight. Back down again, the world loses its swirling motions and lies flat when she hits seven, and by four, the other world is stable.

It bleeds easily into the real world, the school walls flickering out. She takes another breath.

Concrete cracks apart to reveal bark beneath- the black base of towering trees with grey leaves intertwining to a crumbling rooftop. The red sky looms atop the foliage, leading specks of crimson light to land on the dead grass. There's a chill in the air, compounded by the quiet breeze. And silence. The damning, damning silence.

She's used to this world, even after a year away from it.

And, as it would seem, the other isn't at all. It's a miracle he's standing, in the aftermath of the Transition- though, even from this far away, she can see the ground giving way to spiralling fractures in the stone. He's leaning against the railing, face a nasty shade of white even as the school hallway filters into the forest she knows too well.

The world bursts into red, she shuts her eyes, and-

* * *

The headache roars her to waking, like the knocking of a white-knuckled fist on a doorway- insistent, repetitive, and particularly unwelcome. It bubbles around inside her skull, and while common sense pleads for her to lie motionless on the ground, Mio staggers to stand up straight, brushing some dirt off her butt. There's a large cut on her left leg, blood dripping down from her knee all the way down into her socks, and with a wince, she wipes off a few strands of grass from it. Her bag landed near her, against the wall- and she picks it up.

Whistling fills her ears, from far off in the distance. As she regains her footing, Mio blinks over at the world.

She lets out a noise she wasn't aware she was holding; it's familiar, at least- this world's take on Jikangai Academy; strings of the torn sticky-tape the last remnants of the optimistic posters in reality, the cracks in the cement where the weeds are growing through. And, lastly, the large hole spanning from the roof all the way to the exposed basement level, the one she's had the misfortune to fall through based on the red stain dripping from the broken pipe, just a few feet above her.

A half-moon shines through the sky above, partially covered by the surrounding trees. Mio stumbles over to the stairway near her, chipped stone reaching towards the open steel shutters.

It's cold outside. Mio wraps her arms closer around herself, and winces slightly as the air brushes against the blood, chilling it. She reaches into her pocket for her phone and feels her shoulders relax as she notes that the screen is still perfectly intact- she'd landed on her other leg, and despite the pain bouncing through the injury, she can't hide a sigh of relief at the source of light.

She turns the flashlight on at the top of the staircase, directing it towards the trees overgrowing the track field in the far distance. The creatures beyond it flicker like a dying lantern, pulses of rounded, white eyes blinking at each other. They move quietly amongst the forest and Mio has half a mind to fight them, to fend them off her beloved archery range.

But, she has more important things to prioritise.

The Ghost of Jikangai- is this her latest mystery? Hana would want her to figure it out- she always did. And perhaps the two are linked, in some way. It doesn't matter if they're connected. All that matters is making sure...

Mio swallows.

What matters is tracking down the source of the dissonance. The Thing behind the Transitions; or, well, one of them. If she remembers anything, it's that this world is a hive of cockroaches. Unkillable, wrought with disease, and there's far too many of them for her to feel comfortable while she lives here.

"Alright, then!" She chirps to herself, as she is her only company, it seems. Mio brushes herself down once more, and pushes a strand of hair out of her face. "Let's stay optimistic-" and prioritise, of course. "And find that monster."

She won't be fearful of this place again. Even if she has to face this world alone, it'd be worth it- for the answers.

For Hana's sake.

Her thought is cut off by the movement of Shadows ahead- loitering on the overgrown cement path, tendrilled fingers reaching towards a student. She recognises the grey and navy plaid pants as part of Jikangai's uniform, though parts of the figures blue jacket are covered in a wave of black- a consequence of the creatures crowding overtop of him. His arm is outstretched, half forced through its open maw to keep its teeth from closing on his head.

A strong smell reverbs through the air- and she realises that there are long red marks on his skin. Burnt flesh, from where the drool has seeped through his gloves and continued to fall down his limb.

She takes her bag off, and lets it hang off one arm.

you could run, the voice inside her head whispers

But no, she can't. That was never an option. Fleeing was never a choice she could make. It's all or nothing.

And, perhaps, she doesn't think of it at all. Before the thought of thought even reach the station, she's allowed momentum to seize hold of her, charging forward. She doesn't hear her own feet as she hits the ground running, though the creature does- it's eyes, wide and glazed over twist to look at her. Mio brings her bag up, flinging it the last half-metre to slam it into its head.

A sickening crack reverbs as the backpack hits it smack in the jaw, the largest of its canines shattering onto the ground. Its throat twists. A loud wail echoes as it flings off him, darting a few feet back with horse-like tread. It sizzles, and burns. He takes the chance and rolls out, wincing.

Mio extends a hand. "You okay?"

He takes it, staring up at her blankly with pursed lips. A sigh. "I've been much better, but I'm alive at the least. Dare I ask-?"

"Not the time," she chimes back, grabbing onto his wrist before-

He hissed.

"Oh, sorry," letting go, she notes the red patches where skin has already started to blister. "But we can't wait here, or there's going to be more of them. Good job on distracting it for me. How'd you get here? I-" He must've been brought in with her, accidentally pulled in- unlucky.

"I thought you'd said this isn't the time." He retorts.

Mio finally gets an actual look at him. He's not the old man she'd assumed back when they first encountered- if she was literally anyone else, it would've been the beginnings of a crush; dark hair, dark eyes, handsome in a 'I want to stab you with a fork' kind of way. He brushes a few leaves off his pants and begins the painful work of peeling off his gloves.

She winces and ignores the statement. "We gotta go. You can walk, right? I'll see if I can get us back." Without waiting for a response, she stepped forward, ignoring the trickle of pain down her leg.

* * *

"I'm Mio, by the way," she finally says as they round the side of the building. "Mio Tsukimura, the awesome. That's mandatory," she looks over at him, "the awesome part, that is."

His brows furrow. "I'm not calling you that. If anything, I'd rather we not spoke at all. Though I must ask… what is this place? Why does it exist?"

"Coming from the guy who doesn't want to talk, you sure talk a lot." She deadpanned.

"You seem to be forgetting that I was set upon by a monster." He argued. "I have a right to know the circumstances- and, furthermore, a right to understand what is going on here and why."

"It's not a monster, it's a Shadow." She says.

There's a lull of silence. When she looks over, he's staring blankly at her- it appears to be his default expression. Maybe she just really _is _that cool, to be able to stun someone into total quiet. Maybe she can summon a pizza. Maybe she-

"And a shadow is…?"

"Not shadow, Shadow. With a capital, that's important and you should take notes," Mio pulls a pen out of her pocket and writes it on the palm of his hand. "Shadow, with a capital S, that's… S-h-a-d-o-"

"I know how to spell," he snaps, then sighs. "What are they."

Mio pauses for a moment, to search for the words. "They're the human condition." At his exasperated eyebrow movements, she flings her hands about as she tries to elaborate, "shapes created from the consequences of bad decisions."

"...But there's a lot of them." He blinks. "What do you mean, exactly? How…?"

"Humans make a lot of bad decisions," she shrugs, and skips over the unspoken question to move onto a better one. "This place is like… this place is called the uh. Well, that depends on who you ask, really- Hana called this place _Soto_, but I usually just call it the Other Place, it's much less of a mouthful."

Not really, but then again, she hadn't really called it anything important. She doesn't know where the original name from- nor does she know if that's the actual 'original' name; Hana hadn't had the most creative naming sense, unfortunately, and Mio's (awesome) idea of calling it the Dark Hour was rejected.

"Anyway, I-"

Something shifts in the dark. Mio pauses, and flings a hand up to stop him where he's walking.

His brows furrow, like small caterpillars curling together. "What?"

"Shh," she says, directing her eyes to- "Run."

He catches on quickly, almost to the point where- if she didn't know better- she'd have thought he reacted nearly as fast as she did, diving back as the creature lunges from the dark. It's in this observation- this momentary lapse of judgement- that she doesn't react as quickly.

She feels it coming before she can see it- she grabs onto his arm and throws him back as it manifests. A canine's jaw snaps out- flat red eye flickering amongst it's camouflage to clamp down on Mio's left leg. Biting back a yelp of pain, the torn skin on her leg is ripped back, warm blood dripping down through her sneakers and touching her toes.

The ground scrapes at her back as she's dragged against the concrete.

Pressure builds at her knee. It jerks the limb recklessly, as if to tear the appendage from it's socket, teeth grinding into bone. Shoving against the offender with her hands and forcing her fingers in between its open maw and the large wound on her leg. A growl sinks from its throat, blood and saliva trailing down Mio's arm; it's like she's hitting a wall, both literal and metaphorical- cold fur immobile as stone.

Daiya- had he ran?

The answer is _no_, one solidified by the steady 'thwack' of the sole of his shoe, cracking into its forehead and eliciting a quiet grunt. Jolting her arm free in the momentary slackness, she forces her fingers into its eyes. Head forced up with a loud wail, she drags her nails down the underside of it's throat. And as her hands curl into a vice, it dissipates, spiralling into black smoke.

It's not over yet. Even as she staggers to her feet, she can see it reforming, just a few metres away.

He says something from somewhere to her left, but the roaring of blood in her ears drowns him out. She breathes in. Once, twice, tries to ease the adrenaline as it pours, ebbs and flows in ragged gasps, resting her hands on her knees.

If she runs-

_She'll never see Hana again, and the mystery will remain unsolved, forever. _

_Is that something you're willing to __sacrifice?_ _The __choice_ _you're willing to make?_

Mio shakes the thought from her head. "No way," she said aloud. And to Daiya, she yells at him to- "run! I've got this!"

A familiar chuckle reverbs through her head, slicing through the painful cloud that hangs overtop of her.

(you refuse to leave, then?)

She laughs quietly, hysterically as the familiar voice echoes through her skull, almost permeating the air. "No way I'm leaving. It's all or nothing, right? The only way-"

(-is forward.)

Her eyes are burning, prickling at the edges. The blood in her fingers sears hot, iron-hot, like lightning that has struck home at a magnet. Each breath tastes of steel. It rolls off of her tongue, sweltering in the air.

(Declare your regained loyalty to me, old friend, regain the resolve you thought you'd lost. Repeat after me-)

"-I am thou," she whispers, "thou art I-"

(Fly true. And please, don't dare turn your back on this again.)

The world bubbles, painted in a golden hue as she forces her eyes open. It's easier now, the pain is numb in comparison to the crackle of thunder that surges through her fingers, a memoir of her last visit, the sharp, clear moment that pushes her onwards, onwards and onwards.

_Chang'e_ looms over, the electric yellow ribbons on her skirt flowing outwards, mimicking the spears that circle her, casting shadows over the steel mask on her face that covers all but the twitch of a smile. One of her gloved hands moves out, gesturing with a tut at the situation, shaking her head.

Mio grins, feeling the air escaping from her lungs at the static coursing through. Breathless.

She doesn't have her bow back yet- she doesn't think she'll need it.

It's kind of annoying, if she's speaking honestly; to reclaimed her _Persona_ in response to a dog, of all things… how embarrassing! Still, it's better than nothing. She shoots a wide smile towards Daiya.

"This," she chirps, "is why I'm the boss here."

The teeth emerge from the midst of swirling dust, but she's prepared this time. A click of her fingers, the gentle ringing of laughter, and lightning crackling through her fingertips- _Zio,_ as Hanako used to call it- flashing golden sparks to collide against it's skull, sending yellow streaks to bounce off its fur.

Its eyes bulge back in it's skull. It's not over yet. The victory is predetermined, but everything leading to it still needed to be followed through.

Charging forward, in its death throes, Mio pivotes and draws her still bleeding leg towards her- a _crack_, the sole of her foot breaking one of the many teeth that line its jaw. The position keeps her unbalanced, but it's okay. She's not fighting this alone, Chang'e lifts a ribboned hand over her head. For a single moment, Mio sees the Shadows eye widen- perhaps in a mockery of fear, before it comes crashing down on its head.

Into dust, it dissipates, bursting out, and flickering off into the wind.

It's almost anti-climatic. She considers running out into the woods, chasing off the rest of the hot adrenaline that seeps through her veins. To leave Daiya to his fate, to let the open wound on her knee bleed green with infection, to disappear like a rabid dog into the darkness, never to be seen again.

Mio shakes the treacherous thoughts from her head, the gesture to force some clarity and common sense back into her riled brain. Oh, the responsibilities of modern life. How frustrating…

The world is spinning, and she waits for it to clear.

As it does, the pain in her leg becomes sharp again, tearing open through the half-haze that had settled, and driving her to shut her eyes. She hisses.

Before she topples to the floor, she feels a weight under her shoulder, propping her upright. Daiya, presumably- she doesn't open her eyes to check, she can't be bothered, and simply grunts in response, moving to lean on him. He stiffens, and sighs, resigned to his fate as a crutch. "You know where to go?" Mio asks.

"Not in the slightest," he mutters back.

"Go straight," she waves a hand to where she thinks straight could be, "and take a left at the building." Mio can practically hear the exasperation, and she recalls quite easily where it was- "-near the archery range, there's a sign post. That's the way out. Well. I think it is, at least- it should be-"

"For both our sakes," he says, with a sigh, "let's just hope it is."

The rest of her thoughts is vague, and she dully realises that her vision is going dark-...

* * *

...it's late noon when she wakes up.

Sunlight and a cold breeze flicker through the window, painting the room a faint orange glow and sending a shiver through Mio. The blanket that's been tossed over her does little to fight back against it, and after a few attempts of trying to hit the window closed with her foot, she reluctantly gets to her feet to close it.

Only to wince as she presses her leg down on the tiled floor, a dull ache racing up. She's got socks on- her shoes have been removed and neatly placed on a box in the corner- but most importantly, there's clean white bandages wrapped tightly around her knee.

The room is similarly white, as is the bed she was on, held up by metal. A nurses office, based on the steel cabinets, the pills on the counter and the view she has of the track field. There's a single figure running laps there, shadow stretched by the sun to run almost horizontally alongside its owner.

A small note sits pinned next to the door, held up with a blue push pin, and Mio makes out the lettering of her name as she reaches for it. A phone number, followed by black text, '_we need to talk_', and left unsigned. Her bag sits under it, and after grabbing her shoes, there's no nurse to stop her from slipping out the doorway.

No one is in the corridor. The time on her phone says [5:44 pm] and Mio sighs- she must've fallen asleep at some point, how annoying.

Presumably everyone else has gone home. She'd need to get in contact with Daiya, and maybe tell Hideki what had happened, but then again, that's something to be dealt with later. Preferably tomorrow.

Tomorrow's another day.


End file.
